While big guns and large armies are an important part of modern warfare, they’re ineffective without a network of highly-specialized covert operatives working behind the scenes to support their objectives. Some of the most successful military missions in history have been carried out by small, nameless groups of individuals that could be classified as both spies and soldiers, their exploits usually only coming to light decades later when documents about their missions are finally declassified.
10. Operation Fortitude
Operation Fortitude was a crucial Allied deception operation during the Second World War, designed to mislead Nazi Germany’s high command about the main Allied invasion of Europe in 1944. Officially beginning in 1943, it was organized by a secret group of military officers called the London Controlling Section, and formed a part of the much-larger global operation called Operation Bodyguard.
Fortitude’s primary goal was to divert German attention away from the real invasion site at Normandy. To achieve this, it focused on two main areas – while Fortitude North kept Germany’s attention on Norway, Fortitude South reinforced the German belief that the invasion would occur in the Pas-de-Calais region of France, as it was closest to the English coast.
The Germans were led to believe that the fictitious First United States Army Group (FUSAG) was stationed in southeast England under General George Patton, complete with dummy landing crafts, tanks, vehicles, and fake radio traffic to back up the plan. The operation was wildly successful by the end of it, as the Germans continued to believe in the existence of FUSAG even after the D-Day landings in June 1944.
9. Operation Farewell
Operation Farewell was a CIA campaign of computer sabotage during the Cold War in 1981. It began when French President François Mitterrand informed President Ronald Reagan about a high-level KGB officer, Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, who had decided to switch sides. Vetrov provided what is now infamously known as the Farewell dossier, exposing how the Soviets were systematically stealing or buying advanced technology from the West.
Under the guidance of Gus Weiss, the CIA planted deliberately flawed designs for technology, including computer chips, stealth technology, and space defense, that would appear fine at first but failed during operation. For the USSR, the primary purpose of operations was to obtain computer control systems for a new trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The manipulated software caused a massive explosion in June 1982, leaving the Soviet authorities in shock and raising doubts within the administration about the reliability of stolen technology from the West.
8. The Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a spy ring of British double agents that infiltrated the UK government and passed sensitive intelligence secrets to the Soviet Union during the early stages of the Cold War. The members were Kim Philby (pictured above), Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross, recruited by the KGB during their time at Cambridge University in the 1930s.
They were later found to be openly communist and believing in the Soviet cause, leading them to spy on the British government and undermine its foreign policy, including the development of the British nuclear bomb. The ring had a huge impact on global affairs, especially in its effect on the British relationship with post-war allies like the USA. The Cambridge Five stole and passed on classified documents from British intelligence agencies and the Foreign Office to Soviet authorities throughout the duration of their operations.
7. Operation Gladio
Operation Gladio was a secret, stay-behind network of anti-communist fighters set up by the CIA, British secret service, NATO, and other European military agencies in Western Europe after the Second World War. Specially trained by Green Berets and SAS Special Forces, these soldiers were armed with explosives, machine guns, and high-tech communication equipment hidden in underground bunkers and forests across the continent.
Codenamed ‘Gladio’, the Italian branch of the network was exposed in 1990 by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, revealing similar stay-behind armies in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other European countries. These secret armies were usually directly coordinated by NATO and the Pentagon, and were originally created during the Cold War as a defense against a potential Warsaw-block invasion. Gladio would eventually evolve into an extensive NATO-operated network, often involving civilians trained by intelligence operatives.
6. The Lavon Affair
The Lavon Affair, named for former Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon, is a media-nickname given to a failed covert operation carried out by Israel against Egypt in 1954. It was a highly controversial mission that had lasting consequences for relationships within the Middle East, as it involved activating an Israeli sleeper cell of young Egyptian Jews to set off bombs across Egypt with the intention to destabilize Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government.
That didn’t turn out too well, however, as the Egyptian authorities discovered the plot during its planning stages, leading to arrests, trials, and harsh treatment of the spies. Two members of the cell were executed, while others received lengthy prison sentences.
The affair triggered a series of events – a retaliatory military incursion by Israel into Gaza, an Egyptian-Soviet arms deal that angered Western leaders, the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt, and a failed invasion of Egypt by Israel, France, and Britain to topple Nasser. France accelerated its nuclear cooperation with Israel in the aftermath, enabling the latter to eventually develop nuclear weapons.
5. Operation Washtub
Operation Washtub was a clandestine program developed during the 1950s amid Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The initiative aimed to create a network of civilian sleeper agents in Alaska who would stay behind in the event of a Soviet invasion, providing intelligence on enemy activities and establishing escape routes for stranded American military personnel.
Led by US Navy Captain Minor Heine, the plan received approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1950, and was eventually overseen by the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations with support from the FBI. The FBI’s role involved recruiting, training, and equipping the stay-behind agents, strategically chosen from various local occupations like miners, pilots, fishermen, and others with survival skills and knowledge of Alaska’s geography. The agents were trained in espionage, survival techniques, and were equipped with caches of supplies, including weapons and gold in case of emergencies.
4. Operation Wrath of God
Operation Bayonet, also known as Operation Wrath of God, was a covert Israeli campaign initiated in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Massacre, where terrorists belonging to the Black September group killed Israeli athletes and coaches during the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Directed by Mossad, the operation was a retaliatory measure aimed at assassinating those responsible for the attack and deterring future terrorist actions against Israel.
The campaign was authorized by Prime Minister Golda Meir, and the target list included over two dozen individuals affiliated with Black September and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The assassinations began in mid-October 1972, with Mossad agents targeting individuals in various countries across Europe and the Middle East.
In April 1973, a related operation called Operation Spring of Youth involved a raid on several PLO compounds in Lebanon, resulting in several dozen deaths, including individuals connected to the Munich Massacre. The campaign continued for years until Ali Hassan Salameh, the alleged mastermind of the Munich Massacre, was killed in 1979.
3. Operation Gunnerside
On February 27, 1943, a covert group of nine Norwegian commandos raided a German-held hydroelectric plant called Vemork, just outside Rjukan, Norway. Their mission – now officially known as Operation Gunnerside – was to sabotage the facility by destroying the water pipes in its basement.
While unaware of its significance at the time, the operatives later discovered that their successful sabotage hindered Germany’s atomic bomb program that relied on heavy water production at the plant. The Germans had been using heavy water – or deuterium oxide – as a moderator for their nuclear reactor to sustain a chain reaction necessary for the bomb. The lack of coordination and support among the German leadership, however, along with heavy water’s technological limitations, prevented them from achieving a successful reaction.
2. The Red Orchestra
Named by the Nazis, the Red Orchestra was a network of communist spies and resistance fighters operating across Germany during the Second World War. Led by Leopold Trepper, a Polish-born communist, the group provided intelligence to the Soviet government and acted as a resistance organization against the Nazis.
Trepper established the network in the mid-1930s, and when the war began, he turned it into a spy ring aimed at gathering Nazi secrets for the Soviet army. Operating divisions, or rings, were established in Nazi-occupied France, Belgium, Holland, and neutral Switzerland, as they successfully infiltrated Nazi offices, intercepted intelligence information, and even obtained leaked documents about the Nazi plan to invade the Soviet Union. This crucial intelligence, however, was completely ignored by the Soviet government.
The Red Orchestra started breaking down some time in 1942, when several agents were arrested in Belgium. The Gestapo subsequently captured Trepper in Paris and eliminated many members of the network, though some rings continued to operate on a smaller scale.
1. Operation LUSTY
Operation LUSTY – short for ‘Luftwaffe secret technology’ – was a post-WW2 effort spearheaded by the US Air Force to collect and study captured German aircraft, technology, and scientific documents. Led by Col. Harold E. Watson, the Air Technical Intelligence teams were tasked with locating enemy systems and equipment listed on ‘Black Lists’ collected throughout the war. After the fighting ended in May 1945, the ATI’s focus shifted to post-war investigations and the acquisition of advanced German technology.
As a part of the operation, Watson’s team of pilots, engineers, and maintenance personnel sought to recover enemy aircraft and weapons for further study in the United States. In total, Operation LUSTY collected 16,280 items, adding up to about 6,200 tons of captured German equipment.